1.
Everyone on the road to Open ScienceInternational Open Access week: October 22 – 28
Open Peer Review webinar
Programme
12.00 – 12.10 Introduction to Open Peer Review - Emilie Menz
(Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, ULB)
12.10 – 12.30 Axel Cleeremans (Université libre de Bruxelles)
(Open) Peer Review at Frontiers in Psychology
12.30 – 12.50 Louisa Flintoft (BioMed Central In-House Journals)
Experiences of Open Peer Review at BMC
12.50 – 13.00 Questions

2.
Peer review
1. Two traditional ways of peer review
Single blind peer review Double blind peer review
Authors’ name revealed Authors’ names concealed
Reviewers’ names concealed Reviewers’ names concealed
NO NAMES!
In both cases, the PR reports remain

3.
Peer review
The obsession with being “blind” and hiding
One aim : a qualitative, fair and impartial review
But is it realistic? And so efficient?
 Authors are quickly identified from the paper’s content
 Reviewers too are identified from the review’s content
 Reviewers are selected by the journal only > subversion?
 No motivation for peer reviewers whose work is not valued

4.
Open peer review (OPR)
1. OPR and Open Science
One of the 4 pillars of Open Science
“Open science is the movement to make scientific research, data and dissemination
accessible to all levels of an inquiring society.” (Facilitate Open Science Training for
European Research- Foster)
4 pillars: open data
open code
open papers (open access)
open reviews
3 principles:
Accountability
Transparency
Inclusivity

5.
Open peer review (OPR)
2. Definition(s)
What is “Open”?
Identity of the reviewers is made public
Identity of the authors is made public
But also :
Content of the reviews
Participation (wider community)
Interaction between authors and reviewers or between reviewers
Pre-review manuscript
Comments on the final version
(Source: T. Ross-Hellauer, F1000Research, 2017)

6.
Open peer review (OPR)
3. The benefits
1. Improved reviews > More accountability
2. More transparency
3. Quicker > research quicker available (pre-prints), deadlines
4. A “community oriented” approach
5. Improved papers
6. More credit given to the “reviewing process” and to reviewers

7.
Open peer review (OPR)
4. Questions
- Will the referees accept to make an OPR if their names are mentioned?
- Is the assessment really “fair” if the reviewer knows who he is reviewing > gate
open to nepotism ? (same issue as single blind)
- What does happen if a young scholar reviews a paper of a confirmed one? How
will he behave while writing his review if all identities are open?
- Will open participation lead to more conflicts of interests or disputes?

8.
Open peer review (OPR)
The new standard?
Let’s listen to our two guests on that topic.

9.
Axel Cleeremans, Université libre de
Bruxelles
• F.N.R.S Director of Research at the ULB
• Director of the ULB Neuroscience Institute and the group The Consciousness,
Cognition and Computation (CO3)
• Secretary-general for the National Committee of Psychological Science (Belgium)
• 2009- Field Chief-Editor / Frontiers in Psychology - a peer-reviewed open access
journal that covers all aspects of psychology. The largest in the field.
• Guest Associate Editor for Frontiers in Neuroscience

10.
Axel Cleeremans, Université libre de
Bruxelles
(Open) Peer Review at Frontiers in Psychology

11.
Louisa Flintoft – BioMed Central
• PhD in Genetics (King’s College, London)
• 2012-2014 Nature Reviews Genetics
• 2014 … - BioMed Central (BMC), 2018>
• Today Executive Editor BMC In-house journals -BMC Biology, BMC Medicine,
Genome Biology, Genome Medicine.
Biomed Central: a pioneer of open access publishing with over 250
scientific journals.

12.
Louisa Flintoft – BMC
Experiences of Open Peer Review at BMC

13.
Everyone on the road to Open ScienceInternational Open Access week: October 22 – 28
Open Peer Review webinar
Thank you!
Next webinar
“How to achieve OA to publications and books”

14.
Everyone on the road to Open ScienceInternational Open Access week: October 22 – 28
Open Peer Review webinar
This webinar has been recorded and is available on
http://openaccess.be
And more input!